


I loved you before

by HopeCoppice



Series: Bidding Goodbye [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Established Relationship, Hurt, M/M, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23285704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeCoppice/pseuds/HopeCoppice
Summary: Crowley's luck runs out. He uses his remaining time to say goodbye.Crowley POV of "My dear angel," by Natsue_Yotsuki, with permission.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Bidding Goodbye [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1667980
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47





	I loved you before

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this lives up to the standard of the work that inspired it! I recommend you read that first.
> 
> The letter was written by Natsue_Yotsuki, of course. I've tried to match it exactly but any errors are mine!
> 
> Enjoy.

He hadn’t seen them coming.

There should have been nowhere to hide among his minimalist decor, but they’d surprised him all the same. Hell was taking no chances; there were five demons he didn’t recognise holding him in place before he even knew his flat had been breached. Lesser demons, nobodies, like Crowley had been before he rather spectacularly quit. He kicked and hissed, trying to writhe away from their grasping hands, and then he felt it. A pinch, just below the back of his knee. A burning.

“That should do it.”

The demons let him go and vanished as quickly as they’d appeared, but it didn’t matter. Crowley knew, with a sickening certainty, what had just entered his bloodstream, burning its way slowly but surely through his veins.

_Holy Water._

He didn’t know what had possessed Hell to use it against him, after what had happened - or rather, hadn’t - when Aziraphale had gone to his trial and execution in his place, but it didn’t really matter, he supposed. They had, and now-

Now-

Now, he could feel the burning sensation travelling slowly down his leg, and his time was running out. At least he was alone; at least he had time to say goodbye to Aziraphale. He opened a hidden drawer set into the wall and withdrew a single black feather. He was glad he’d set up the enchantment long ago; he doubted his powers would work now, with Holy Water working its way through his veins. He opened another concealed compartment and dragged out the chest he kept in there. He lifted the lid with shaking hands, placed the feather on top, and closed it again. Everything was in place for the chest to go off to Aziraphale, even if Crowley didn’t do anything else. Even if he didn’t have time to say goodbye.

Did he have time-?

He had to try. His leg felt as though it was on fire; it dragged awkwardly behind him as he struggled over to the desk, clutching the chest tightly to his body. There, a pen and paper waited for him.

_My dear angel,_

_I bet you’re surprised to get a letter from me, eh?_

Only the most important letter he’d ever bloody written, and he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t have time to think about it, either. The only way forward was just to keep setting words down, keep telling Aziraphale what he wished he could tell him in person.

_But as I know your affinity for the written word, I thought it fitting…_

Wait. Aziraphale did love the written word, but there were plenty of distracting items in the chest he was sending with his letter of farewell. Some things in there shouldn’t be touched; one, it was essential that he _did_ touch. Right away.

_I assume you’ve taken a look into the chest already, didn’t you?_

_Have you touched the feather yet? Please do. ~~I beg you to~~_

No. Too much. He’d only make Aziraphale anxious, and he needed the angel to stay calm, not to suspect anything until he’d touched the feather. He crossed it out.

_Please_ _resume reading only after touching it._

_I am sorry, but there is no easy way to say this…_

  
  


He paused; he didn’t know _how_ to say it. Ink pooled beneath the nib of his pen as he searched frantically for the right words, trying to ignore the burning sensation now creeping up the length of his leg.

~~_Hell got_~~ No. Too blunt. ~~_By the time you are reading this_~~ No. Too cliché. _I am sorry, angel._ Well, at least that was true. It was just that it wasn’t something they often said to one another. No time like the present, he supposed. No other time at all.

~~_They_~~ No, no time for blame. No time to give Aziraphale a target to chase down. He had to focus on them. On himself. On his situation. 

_I am dying, my angel. And there is nothing that can be done. Some demons ~~overwhelmed~~ \- _He crossed the last word out, fearing it was too melodramatic, and then immediately changed his mind. If you couldn’t be melodramatic while slowly dying of Holy Water, when _could_ you be? _-overwhelmed me in my flat and injected me with Holy Water._

He tried to reread the last sentence as dispassionately as he could, but he couldn’t help the way his heart sped up at the reminder of his situation. His _fate,_ he supposed. But there were things that needed saying, to make sure Aziraphale didn’t share his misfortune. There was no time for horror.

_I’ve prepared this chest ~~before~~ a long time ago. It’s my legacy, so to speak. I linked it ~~with my~~ to me. The moment I- _

He hesitated, just for an instant. He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it, even as the sensation of fire in his veins consumed his legs, making him grit his teeth against the agony.

_-vanish, it will send itself to you. So there’s no point in endangering yourself by coming to my flat. It’s too late._

Crowley could see Aziraphale in his mind’s eye, not peacefully reading as he probably was now, but as he would be while he read this letter. No doubt by the time he reached this part of Crowley’s farewell, he would already have tried to come to him. If he’d touched the feather as instructed, and if the feather had done its job, he would have failed. He was probably furious. Crowley hoped he was. He’d rather Aziraphale was angry than sad; he hated to see his angel sad.

_In the chest, you will find some things I've gathered over time. Some of them you will recognise, I'm sure._

His first pair of sunglasses waited in the chest, along with a book Aziraphale had given him as a gift, back when books were first invented. Crowley had kept it close to his heart until they’d saved the world, and then he’d added it to the chest to be kept safe. Aziraphale would recognise that, he hoped; if nothing else, it was now a very valuable artifact indeed. There were things he wouldn’t recognise, too - a medal Crowley had got for saving a wounded soldier during the Boxer Rebellion, a ceremonial key to the city of Kassel, a fragment of rubble that couldn’t possibly be traced back to the church it had once been part of, a church destroyed in 1941-

He had to focus. There wasn’t time to get lost in memories. That was for Aziraphale to do, not a luxury he could afford. Crowley only had time to write, to pass it on. 

_It's all yours now._

_The keys are for the Bentley and some safe houses, too._

_It's a map in there, showing you where they are. I've warded them. ~~For you~~_

He crossed that out. It hurt too much to write; it would hurt too much to read. He had to stick to the facts.

_It should give Heaven and Hell a hard time finding you._

_In the small box is a vial of hellfire. ~~I beg you not to use it to~~_

He couldn’t think about that. He had warded that box to a degree that had seemed faintly ridiculous at the time; it wouldn’t even open if Aziraphale meant to harm himself with its contents. Aziraphale could get around that, he was sure; the angel was clever. But he hoped that the wards would at least delay him, at least give him time to reconsider. Aziraphale could live without Crowley, he was sure. He would have to.

_Please_ _don’t use_ _it!_

The Holy Water was spreading upwards, now, coursing through veins and arteries to reach the base of his wings. And, like blinding flashes of light and a migraine all in one, Crowley was beginning to remember things. Heaven. Before the Fall. Aziraphale. _Himself_. Cursing his trembling hands, the way they made his already untidy sprawl almost completely illegible, he forced himself to keep writing.

_You once asked me, whether I remembered heaven. I didn't ~~not until~~ But I do now. Seems like the Holy Water raging through me triggered something. _

It’s still triggering something, but he can’t set his pen down for long enough to let the memories fully return. He doesn’t have time.

_I cannot grasp a name. But I remember_ _you_ _... It's always you._

_You never said we knew each other. I do remember now. And I am happy, you know? I really am. When I fell, ~~all I could think about was you~~ I feared for you to be lonely. But we found each other again and became closer than before. _

He froze as the demons reappeared in the flat around him.

“Right, he’s obviously stuck here. Dagon was right about neutralising his powers. Torch it.” They snapped their fingers to summon Hellfire and set about lighting his various belongings on fire, plants and papers alike going up. For the moment, Crowley, the chest, and the desk were unscathed; he couldn’t afford to get distracted. But his mind seemed to have different ideas, pulling him back to memories of Heaven.

He wrenched himself free of his own thoughts with an almighty effort, only to find that the demons had gone. He was completely surrounded by Hellfire, but that didn’t matter; the pain of the Holy Water had reached the bottom of his ribcage. He was running out of time.

_I am grateful for your love. And now I fear for you again. Stay safe!_

~~_Raphael_~~ He crossed out the name with a single hasty line. It hurt to write it; it hurt to see it there, stark black ink against white. But then he was already in so much pain. What was a little more, to give his oldest self to Aziraphale?

~~_I remember, they called me Raphael_~~ Again, a firm stroke through the name, through the whole sentence. It feels _wrong_ , somehow. It had been a part of him - it had _been_ him - for so long. _I_ -

He doubled over, coughing up thick black blood onto the page as the Holy Water began to work on his lungs. It would have been kinder of them to douse him in the stuff, the way he’d killed Ligur; that had been quick. Those few droplets they’d forced into him were eating away at him slowly, and it was torture beyond anything Hell could ever have devised. He didn’t bother to strike out the _I_ of his abandoned sentence; he just lifted his pen again and hurried on. He had to warn his angel to stay away.

_They set ~~fire~~ the building on ~~He~~ fire. It’s Hellfire. Don’t come. _

He had to try several times to get the sentence out, Holy Water pounding through his veins with the desperate, scattered rhythm of his heart. He was almost out of time, and there was so much he wanted to say. He ploughed desperately on.

_Please, ~~angel~~ ~~Azir~~ my Love, be safe! _

_I was Raphael._ He gritted his teeth against the pain of the admission. _And I loved you. ~~We were~~ _Good, they had been good, hadn’t they? They had been damn near perfect, apart from the small matter of being eternal adversaries. But it didn’t feel like enough; it felt like too much; it didn’t feel like it needed saying. He crossed it out.

_Don’t come. They ~~must~~_ _MUST_ _not get to you! Promise me this. It’s my wish_

No, that won’t do. Aziraphale is stubborn; this, Crowley’s last plea, has to be enough to keep him away. Keep him safe.

_It’s my ~~wish~~_ _last wish_ _. Stay safe! Let me save you one more time._

Tears blurred Crowley’s vision, burned his cheeks before dropping onto the page, and he wondered if they were Holy Water too.

_~~I am afraid~~ _He could not burden Aziraphale with his fears. _~~It hurts so much, angel~~ _Nor with his pain. He had to keep some dignity, for both of their sakes. He had to say goodbye.

_~~Wherever~~ Whatever the Almighty has in store for us, wherever I go, I will wait for you. _ _Promise_ _me, you won’t follow before your time._

All that was left was to set down the things that were true. Crowley had been truly certain of very few things in his long existence, and he wrote them quickly with a shaking hand.

_I loved you before time was a thing, I love you now and I will love you forever._

_Crowley_

He hesitated, just for a moment, before adding an older name.

~~Raphael~~

He crossed it out as quickly as he’d written it, and then reconsidered. It was his last chance. He had loved Aziraphale as both angel and demon; it was only write to sign both names now that the time came for them to part.

_Raphael_

He scrunched his eyes shut against the pain, pressed his lips to the letter, and then hurriedly stuffed it into an envelope. It took all his concentration to inscribe it with Aziraphale’s name in Enochian, and then he placed it reverently beside the feather inside the chest.

He closed the lid and collapsed across it with a last desperate gasp as the Holy Water finally overcame him. Seconds - scorching, anguished seconds - later, it consumed the last of him, and both chest and demon disappeared from the burning flat.


End file.
